One of my end users was greeted by this informative error message recently. He was connecting to the internet using a 3G dongle and then to our network via Cisco AnyConnect VPN. “Software reinstall!” thought I. “Wrong!” said Google.

Although this is probably due to faulty programming on Cisco’s part, the culprit is Internet Explorer. (How I love to blame that historically stinky pile of poodoo.)

To resolve: load up IE. If you can’t see the [ File | Edit | View… ] menus, press Alt, to bring it up. On the File menu, “Work Offline” is almost certainly checked. Uncheck it. Connect again. Job done. Who knew.

If you’re using Internet Explorer 11, bad news: Microsoft removed the “Work offline” option from the File menu. Gone. So there’s no GUI interface to the relevant setting. In fact it’s a registry key called “GlobalUserOffline”, found at HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings. You need to set it to 0, disable “Work offline”. This registry file should do the trick: DisableWorkOffline.reg.

Thank-you so much. Glad I came upon your site after reading only 3. It just worked 2 days ago and I couldn’t figure out what could have caused it to stop. I started hearing that it was cause by FIOS and I didn’t know what to do.

I’m glad you asked this question – it took a fair bit of research to find the answer. Microsoft removed the “Work offline” option from the File menu in Internet Explorer 11 and has not replaced it with any alternative. This basically leaves you with no GUI way of controlling this setting. Essentially you have to edit the Registry.

The relevant key is: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\GlobalUserOffline. You need to set it to 1, to work online again. Here’s a registry file that will achieve the same result for you: DisableWorkOffline.reg.

Resurrecting this due to Windows 10 Technical Preview OS. Not finding that key…..Weird part is I have gotten it to work a couple times…..for instance right after installing the 3.1.0.5170 version and it does the initial connection. But close it out and try again..and always get the error.

Right click the cisco client exe and set compatibility on it. When you right click the exe you can simply choose “troubleshoot compatibility” and go with the recommended setting and to test it make sure your running cisco app is closed. It works!! Apply changes and your set.

Tim, thanks so much for the compatibility view advice. The “work offline” fixes didn’t help me on my Win 8.1 x64 machine, but after killing the mobility process and then right clicking on vpnui.exe, selecting “Troubleshoot compatibility”, and trying recommended fixes, I connected, first try. Big relief!

Just got off the phone with Cisco support and I can confirm that what Tim said is correct and working for me.

I navigate to C:\Program Files (x86)\Cisco\Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client\vpnui.exe> r-click> properties> on the Compatibility tab check “Run this program in compatibility mode for:” and select the OS of your choice. I am running Win 8.1 clients in Windows 7 mode as a solution to this problem.

This issue is a result of a Microsoft security update. Not sure which one since I installed 34 updates right before my VPN clients broke.

Thanks for this… i was freaking out for this was the first time i encountered this error on my 3yrs using cisco any connect. I believe i have toggled something but not so sure what.. i have searched other suggestions for resolving the issue and one worked for me. Thanks alog for tge detailed work around.